While hooking people up is expressly at the core of what they do, the local online startup takes the pressure off by encouraging members to “meet up with someone and learn something” rather than focus on the happily ever after.

Want tips on how to invest in the stock market? Master Photoshop? Breastfeed, paint Easter eggs or play the violin? Or maybe you have skills to share and an hour to kill, or want to meet new people. Either way, the E-180 network wants to set you up.

Founder and general director Christine Renaud first had the idea to build a social network for knowledge exchange about five years ago while working toward her master’s in education at Harvard University, where she began developing alternative views about what education could be.

A whip-smart education reformist, Renaud said she’s always been most excited about picking up new skills when she’s way over her head and “learning by doing” with other people.

“We often still define education in what happens in the classroom or in schools, but I really believe that education is a relationship,” she explained. “People learn best when there is a problem to solve, a project to build, or a question that needs to be answered. And the current system is not built to foster this kind of ‘life itself’ education.”

So, in the spirit of collaboration and community, the entrepreneur worked outside the system to build it herself. When she met her current CTO, Alexandre Spaeth — who just happened to be pursuing his PhD in computer tech with a focus on dating website algorithms — their work aligned and E-180 relationships began to grow.

E-180 has over 2,000 users, facilitating over 500 Montreal meet-ups since launching the first version of its website in 2011.

Last year, the company began branching out to different cities via a network of ambassadors keen to “make knowledge move,” with a chapter launching in Quebec. Since then, there’s been interest from ambassadors to set up E-180 networks in Toronto, Paris, New York, San Francisco, Boston and Chicago. The ambitious company is aiming to gain 50,000 members by 2014 — so it doesn’t hurt that people are really starting to pay attention.

Last month, E-180 was named one of C2-MTL’s Top 10 most innovative Montreal companies, later gracing the pages of progressive, U.S. business mag Fast Company as one of the top 50 tech innovators worldwide.

Additionally, E-180 received a $110,000 grant from the Canada Media Fund to build a mobile application called La Trame, set to launch this fall. La Trame will allow members to look each other up in real-time to exchange knowledge on the spot.

And right now — besides hosting fun meet-up parties dubbed “knowledge markets” for members to mingle — they are busy creating a collaborative, co-working prototype space with the Canadian Centre for Architecture, set to open Saturday, and run from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m.

The experimental space will be available for members to have E-180 meetings, and is to be replicated permanently in Villeray this year.

This huge expansion and innovation seems to come naturally for Renaud, who lights up when talking about all the possible ways to tap into how much knowledge is everywhere.

“I am deeply moved by the generosity of human beings to share their experience. We’re just trying to make it more accessible,” she said.

“We all have these moments where things are difficult, or we have reached our limits, but sometimes when people meet and share, it really unlocks the potential.

“With our work, we’re facilitating that.

“We want to make it easier for it to happen.”

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